gallery fees: is this normal?!

[Derrel]

Hey...what the heck is wrong with making a $4.19 profit on the sale of a $25 matted print! And pardon my language, but jeebus...open half a day on Saturday, and closed on Sundays, in a resort type town? The sheer dumbness of that boggles the mind.

 

[KmH]

In my experience 40% is about standard.
So 30% was a pretty good deal.

"He said best sales are priced under $25 and are matted prints."
That is really sad and a good example of Walmartization.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Sounds like the "co-op" structure I was running into here, pay for the space to pay for the venue as a group, I have yet to find one with a good track record or that actually curates in any way as long as you are willing to pay the fee. Most that I contacted offered space without seeing my work. Reputable galleries on the other hand curate and often have a long wait to get a showing (I booked 2 showings for 2016 in 2014) and as others have said 30%ish is pretty standard.

 

[vfotog]

if it were just commission, the pricing wouldn't be bad but the fees in addition aren't normal. The hours of operation are just nuts. Hardly surprising that the small sizes sell the best. The only people coming in during the week are mostly people who don't have jobs. Weekend tourists and people who work standard workweeks can only come in and shop on Saturday mornings? Crazy town.

 

[Designer]

Do you think your town would allow you to set up a card table and umbrella on the sidewalk? Say...a few doors down from the gallery, and open ONLY on Saturday afternoon.

Yeah, that's what I would do.

 

[JustJazzie]

He said best sales are priced under $25 and are matted prints.

This is a no-lose for the gallery owner.
He makes his costs and profit from the artists, he doesn't care what is displayed as long as the space is rented.
The low cost prints are a draw for low cost buyers.
He wants traffic so low end shoppers will buy prints and he can say that the gallery sold lots of prints to entice more artists to rent space.
Ugh.
Avoid this like the plague.

I can't say I was ever truly interested, mostly just curious if the stipulations were as really nuts as they seemed!

I don't know what pricing is like in our area, but last gallery I was in was run by about 6 of the "artists" that showed their work. They seemed to simply rotate who sat in the gallery that day. I wasn't really impressed by their work.

The quality of work in there was one of the reasons I even bothered asking. I was thinking "oh, how my (mediocre) work could shine in here." ;-)

Hey...what the heck is wrong with making a $4.19 profit on the sale of a $25 matted print! And pardon my language, but jeebus...open half a day on Saturday, and closed on Sundays, in a resort type town? The sheer dumbness of that boggles the mind.

Population, under 9,000 people. Resort town? Not even close. We do get weekend campers in the summer though. ;-)

Do you think your town would allow you to set up a card table and umbrella on the sidewalk? Say...a few doors down from the gallery, and open ONLY on Saturday afternoon.

Yeah, that's what I would do.

Sidewalk? What's a sidewalk? There's lots of open dirt patches around though! :giggle:

 

[Designer]

Sidewalk? What's a sidewalk? There's lots of open dirt patches around though! :giggle:

So it's not paved. Some part of the public way anyhow.

I'm perfectly serious about my suggestion. Maybe you wouldn't sell as many prints as if they were in a gallery, but you wouldn't have the overhead cost and you could keep most of the proceeds.

By being open only Sat. afternoon, you would not (IMO) be in direct competition with the gallery, and for one half day per week you could get out and meet the public directly.